Category Archives: Stock Background Characters 101

Stock Background Characters 101: Ahab and Loomis Wannabes

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In this feature, we examine the lesser beings of the slasher movie realm, which, if you’re making your own slasher film, could provide a good cast roster for you.

No killer or final girl profiles here, this is a celebration of those underlings who made the most of their fleeting flirtation with stardom. And usually died.

This time, if you’re a psycho looney killer, look over your shoulder, somebody’s after YOU! It’s the AHAB / LOOMIS WANNABE!

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Overview: Even a mass-murderer has something to fear, and it takes the form of a middle-aged man who is hell bent on subduing our merry hacker before he decimates the teenage population of Scary Lake, USA. He can be the detective who’s been hunting him for years, a priest with the key to stopping him once and for all, or a vengeful parent looking to even the score. He’s also prone to bleat on about the killer to no avail. Will anybody listen? No.

Linguistic Snapshot: “You have to listen to me, he’s coming back here to kill again and again and again – just like twenty years ago! You’ll be sorry if you don’t call off the scavenger hunt in the cemetery!”

Styling: Ahabs and Loomi are exclusively middle-aged guys with a vested interest in the killer. Often a grizzled detective with a drink problem, or a disrespected shrink who has been trying to convince those around him for years just how EEEEEVIL the danger is. Therefore, cheap suits, rain macks, and headwear are commonplace, beards and spectacles optional, but wild eyes help a lot when trying to convince local law enforcement and/or carefree local teenage populous.

Hallmarks: Tunnel-vision obsession on stopping the killer is a must. Ahabs are likely single or divorced because of their fixation on the case. Despite being the good guy, they’re not ‘good’ in the same way Laurie, Ginny, Nancy, or Marti is ‘good’ – they’re ruthlessly committed to the cause and the deaths of a few horny teenagers is just collateral damage.

Downfall: Ahabs and Loomi survive or die in fairly equal numbers. Dr Loomis, for instance, kept chugging back to Haddonfield every Halloween in an attempt to stop Michael Myers, hardly ever coming face to face with his former patient; whereas Detective Gamble of He Knows You’re Alone finally came to rescue heroine Amy and ended up a useless bystander and got knifed to death, as did Kadankov in The Pool, done in before he could reach the fated teens… Elsewhere, Ripper‘s Kelso (Jurgen Prochnow) thinks he’s been successful in catching the killer and skips away happy.

Genesis: Arbogast may have been the proto-Ahab way back when he investigated the disappearance of Marion Crane, last seen at the Bates Motel (in Psycho, duh), although his meddling ultimately cost him his life. The character was cemented by Donald Pleasence’s classic portrayal of Dr Samuel Loomis in Halloween and all of its Michael-centric sequels up until the sixth film in 1995. He was the classic oracle, though with some knowledge beyond that of the likes of Crazy Ralph over in Crystal Lake.

The role was cloned (as was just about everything else) for McBride in Prom Night; the cop whose son is unknowingly targetted by the vengeful killer, though McBride spends the whole movie chasing somebody else completely. The unnamed priest in Absurd is the only one who can stop the killer. The House on Sorority Row featured Dr Beck returning to try and stop the killing spree of the malformed child he delivered years earlier. In Sleepaway Camp III, the cop-dad of a victim from the previous movie returned to try and stop Angela harming any more campers… And on it goes.

Legacy: Though not as prevalent in recent years, Ahabs and Loomi still crop up from time to time to warn a small town about the impending doom. Most iconically, Robert Englund played the role of Doc Halloran in Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, who came to Glen Echo to stop his former patient.

Hatchet III toyed with re-gendering the idea and featured Caroline Williams as a journalist who wrote extensively on the legend of Victor Crowley. The Halloween series has long been the subject of rumours that, after Pleasence’s death, his daughter Samantha Loomis would take up the reigns to finish her father’s work, though once the Zombie remakes floated to the surface, all bets were off.

While Jason Voorhees operated largely beyond the scope, in 1993’s Jason Goes to Hell, a chintzy bounty hunter was sent after him who pretty much fulfilled the role, but died anyway.

Conclusions: Evil needs an enemy beyond the virtuous girl who eventually bests the killer, though lines may blur between an Ahab/Loomis wannabe and an oldtimer who warns the teens of their fate, it’s one of those background tropes that could probably stand to be regurgitated sometime soon so it’ll look nice and new again.

Stock Background Characters 101: Holy Vessels

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In this feature, we examine the lesser beings of the slasher movie realm, which, if you’re making your own slasher film, could provide a good cast roster for you.

No killer or final girl profiles here, this is a celebration of those underlings who made the most of their fleeting flirtation with stardom. And usually died.

Now, cross yourself and say your prayers, because today belongs to the HOLY VESSELS!

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Overview: The humble slasher movie may not have loads to say on the subject of religion, it leaves that to the likes of The Omen and The Exorcist, but wherever there’s fundamentalist belief, there’s almost certainly horror and thus the leaders of religion. In slasher territory, it’s usually priests and nuns, and they can be nice or they can be agents of eeeeeevil.

Linguistic Snapshot: “My child, God has chosen to punish you. For the killer and his phallic weapon are what he hath sent to cleanse you of your sinful ways. Now here, drink this holy water before you BURN IN HELL!”

Styling: There’s really not much fashion variation in the church; Gok Wan would have a tantrum. Nuns don the usual habit, while priests have cloaks and collars but can at least do something with their hair: Murderous Father Jonas of Prom Night IV has a ponytail grown from years of being locked up in the depths of the church. Evil-child preacher Isaac from Children of the Corn rocks one of those old-tyme circular hats that sits like a black halo. A black halo of evil.

Hallmarks: Depending on whether the religious vessel is evil or not, hallmarks are unusually variable. For instance, Silent Night, Deadly Night‘s Mother Superior is not a villain per se, though it is she who undoubtedly plays a massive part in driving the killer’s rage come Christmas time, thanks to her strict ways and over zealous handing out of punishments for ‘naughty’ kids. There are the helpful Sisters of Christ from beyond the grave, guilt-ridden Catholic priests with secrets the Church cannot fix, cannibal satanic priests, water-bound ghost-nuns, and wannabe-hip homo-repressed fathers.

Downfall: Again, the fate of a holy vessel depends on their relationship to the victims. If they are killing them then the usual rules apply, if they are trying to save them then often they will die trying, see Father Reilly in The Boogey Man, who gets a torso full of kitchen knives as he faces down the mirror-demon thingy, and in non-slasher terms, Father Malone in The Fog, who sacrifices himself out of guilt.

Other holy vessels who serve to annoy or get in the way of the rest of the cast are summarily done in as any other victim: Ricky finally achieves what his brother never could by axing Mother Superior in Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (though why she is now scarred and the absence of her strong accent remains a mystery), and a dead prom queen-possessed teen shoves a crucifix down the throat of the guilt-ridden priest in Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II.

Father Cummings in Bloody Bloody Bible Camp gets a visit from Jesus – or Ron Jeremy – that saves him from the grave in order to save the remaining members of his flock from the psychotic killer ‘nun’.

Genesis: Religious folk have been appearing in slasher films for a long time in roles of differing significance. Alfred Sole’s anti-Catholicism flick Alice, Sweet Alice in 1976 had a zealot in a creepy plastic doll mask going on a minor killing spree, culminating in a church showdown; Wes Craven’s Deadly Blessing featured a sub-Amish community of hyper-religious folks and a mystery-killer operating in the locale, and a Loomis-aping priest tracked a psycho loon in Absurd.

Legacy: Unlike many of our other Stock Backgrounders, there’s been little change in the representation of holy folk in the genre. There are as many well-meaning ones as there are psychos: Maureen in Psycho III was a fallen nun who accidentally caused the death of another sister and was banished from the convent, only to end up at the Bates Motel where a worse fate awaited her; the ghost of Amanda Krueger whispered advice in Craig Wasson’s ear about defeating her evil undead son once and for all in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, and returned as a younger version of herself in the fifth film.

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A particularly creepy killer priest stalked college kids and some of his old comrades in Happy Hell Night, outdone twenty years later by the axe-swinging nun who terrorised the Happy Days Bloody Bloody Bible Camp (although it was set in 1984, so theoretically before Malius’ little spree), and the ghost of a nun took revenge on some old Catholic schoolgirls in…uh, The Nun. Or did she? Check out the accompanying Twist of Fury for this film’s risible revelation.

Plenty of other killers have used religion as a motive, the loon in The Majorettes, for example, who believes he is ‘purifying’ the ‘slutty’ girls of a high school cheerleadering squad.

And who could write about nuns in horror without taking a moment to recognise Jessica Lange’s Sister Jude from ‘American Horror Story’ – possibly the best nun in screen history?

Conclusions: Religion can be good or bad. I’m not a fan of it, but it certainly jazzes up some horror films when needs be. What I’d really like to see is a film with a transsexual nun. No idea why, just think it’d be awesome.

"No, sister... we were fucking."

“No, sister… we were fucking.”

Stock Background Characters 101: Unrealistically camp gay

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In this feature, we examine the lesser beings of the slasher movie realm, which, if you’re making your own slasher film, could provide a good cast roster for you.

No killer or final girl profiles here, this is a celebration of those underlings who made the most of their fleeting flirtation with stardom. And usually died.

This month, be catty, yet fashionable and definitely sexless as we look at
THE UNREALISTICALLY CAMP GAY

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Overview: In movie-world, minorities only ever come in two types: threatening and entirely non-threatening. In these PC-centric times we live in, gone are some of the more offensive stereotypes of gay characters, specifically men (we’ll deal with lesbians another day), where the only plausible style of representation was being a drag queen, a child molester, or a repressed psychopath. These days, it’s all about camp humour. Think Will & Grace & Ghostface.

Linguistic Snapshot: “Oh my God, girls, I tell you that killer better not come after me… Unless he’s Jensen Ackles with a donkey dick and doesn’t get blood on my Prada *squeaky giggle*.”

Styling: The camp gay man must wear tight-fitting clothes that make him appear skinny and weak. He can’t be one of the gym-sculpted Adonises that litter the scene, because they might be mistaken for REAL men and we can’t have that! No, be flaming, be stylish, be a functioning hair-gel addict. Hey, why not try make-up too?

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Hallmarks: After it being communicated to the audience that he is gay, the Unrealistically Camp Gay needn’t do much more. After all, that’s all that’s required on the knowledge front. All that’s left to do is hang around in the background and make occasional razor-sharp quips about the depressingly-dull romantic problems of the main boy and girl, as only THEIR love matters.

Downfall: In days of yore, UCG’s would be quite violently slashed up on screen to appease the assumed hoards of homophobic audience members who like to see “them fags get what they deserve!” While social stance may be a little more progressive, gay characters tend to hang around a little longer, neither being the first to go, nor one of the last. He is a midriff victim (possibly to complement the crop-top he’s likely to have been forced to don by the costume department).

In Venom, Ricky is summarily done in relatively early on, incapably running from the killer (remember, gays can’t run, throw, or lift weights in Hollywood) and having his arm ripped off; super-camp Latino-gay Shawn of 7eventy 5ive, miraculously gets laid by a hot cowboy (an unlikely pairing, but, y’know, gays will do anyone) before almost literally running into the killer’s blade; Fame-dancing Asian-gay Ricky (double minority points!) from Hack! attempts ill-advised martial arts on the killer and is, instead, gunned down. Finally, Timmy, student of Cherry Falls High School and victim of evident high-velocity collision with the Boots cosmetics counter, is afforded an off-screen throat-slashing as one of the primary virgin victims.

Genesis: Early slasher movie gay characters were far more commonly found in red herring roles, suspect because of their “deviant” sexual preferences, that, naturally, go hand in hand with psychotic breaks. One early example, though more incidental than intended, was Radish in Final Exam. Whether the geeky character is supposed to BE gay is a mystery, only Joel S. Rice’s performance at least APPEARS angled towards being the fag for heroine Courtney’s hag. He survives most of the film, is picked on by the macho jock-types, and done in when he tries to warn Courtney of the impending danger.

In the curiously named Canadian export American Nightmare (!?), Dolly the transvestite is the sole “male” victim of a razor-toting loon, who encounters him earlier while escaping and yells a hateful remark in his direction, then later returns to finish the job.

Lastly, and most infamously, is boy-hero Jesse in A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: This much analysed entry in the series had an intended subtext of homosexuality, as Freddy Krueger literally “came out” of Jesse’s body at various points to kill schmucks. Eventually, Jesse is saved by the kiss of a girl; hetero-trumps-homo and saves the day. Those who criticise the film for it’s “pro-gay” material are clearly uninformed on what “pro-gay” means… Elm Street 2 doesn’t have much positive to say on the subject. Just check out that S&M-fused gay bar Jesse coincidentally wanders into…

elm2bar2Legacy: In Scream 4, Charlie and Robbie make a point of stating that, in their “rules reversed” theory of modern horror, that the only way to survive a scary movie is to be gay. Nice idea, but yet to be seen in practice.

Until that happens, we stand and watch as gay characters become slightly more evident in the genre, ideally less camp and annoying, and aren’t written as pathetic cowards either.

The gay boys in Bride of Chucky, Venom and The Clown at Midnight are, at least, far more incidental in terms of their sexuality. None of them are able to demonstrate anything on screen, merely colour their hair with peroxide, engage in short-lived conversations about not being straight, and, of course, die summarily.

Elsewhere, gay-produced slasher HellBent may have been largely set in a West Hollywood gay club, but it presented characters of varying campness, from the muscle guy who regrets dressing in drag for Halloween, to the testosterone hemorrhaging sex-pest, and the more sensitive final guy.

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In Scary Movie, the revealed killers are made up of a closet gay teenager and his friend who allows him to suck cock, but who has been the subject of endless gay visual gags throughout the film, culminating in their har-de-har-har ‘position of death’; slumping into a butt-fuck position.

Conclusions: Sadly, it’s still widely believed by the people that produce slasher movies that the audience is strictly limited to heterosexual men interested only in seeing girl-on-girl action when it comes to intonations of anything-but-straight sexualities. The sheer number of fansites, blogs, and even books on horror written by gay men is staggering, what the draw of this largely unsympathetic subgenre is remains to be made clear, perhaps the sense of “outcast-ness” shared with the likes of Laurie Strode or seeing the popular (and probably nasty) kids laid to waste are among viable reasons.

Anyway, we wouldn’t have gotten Hellbent in the 80s (Cruising sure don’t count), so tropes are morphing and changing all the time and, perhaps Charlie and Robbie’s reading will be made fact in the not so distant future.

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Stock Background Characters 101: Simpletons & Weirdos

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Happy Friday the 13th!

In this feature, we examine the lesser beings of the slasher movie realm, which, if you’re making your own slasher film, could provide a good cast roster for you.

No killer or final girl profiles here, this is a celebration of those underlings who made the most of their fleeting flirtation with stardom. And usually died.

Stare this way and maybe drool a bit, as it’s time to get insultingly stereotypical with
SIMPLETONS & WEIRDOS

simpletons1aOverview: In film world, there’s only one type of mental illness: the retarded pervert. Always male, always middle-aged, never particularly easy on the eye, these Simpletons & Weirdos fall exclusively into the red herring field. They skulk around, glare, say very little and creep teenage girls out.

But they’re never the killer. Ever*.

(*unless they’ve been corrupted by supernatural forces.)

Linguistic Snapshot: “I like teenage girls… you sure got pretty haaaaair.”

Styling: Older than the primary cast in most cases, S&W’s more often than not overweight middle-aged guys in checkered shirts wielding some kind of took used in their menial job as a groundskeeper or custodian. If they have glasses, they’ll be out of style and held together with tape; hair – if not lost – will be scraggly and far beyond the reaches of fashion. He will also have a neutral expression that is plain freaky to everyone around him.

Hallmarks: In the thankless role of the red herring / social outcast, the average slasher movie Weirdo doesn’t get much to do except lurk and suddenly appear in an empty hall, brandishing a weapon of some sort – or a mop – that makes whomever he bumps into, usually the final girl, peg it outta there in fear.

Weirdos love to appear at windows:

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On occasion, this character will actually have insight that the threatened group of teens don’t. Like The Oracle, he can see the potential danger that’s closing in but nobody ever listens to Special Timmy.

Downfall: Simpletons & Weirdos don’t always die. It’s about a 50/50 chance of them ambling along to safety because the killer isn’t interested in them and nobody who counts believes a thing they say, or conversely they show up to help the final girl when she most needs it and are claimed as collateral damage. And every now and then they’ll just be done away with early on to bolster the body count.

Genesis: Unless you count Crazy Ralph from Friday the 13th, the first obvious Weirdo to have appeared was Mr Sykes, the school janitor, in Prom Night. Seen floating around in the background a few times while Jamie Lee Curtis and friends pop theories that he “spies on the girls in the locker room” and dub him a wacko. Of course, Sykes had nothing to do with it and was the first person to holler that a killer was on the loose.

Soon after, The Prowler coughed up Otto, a hulking lurker who stepped in to save final girl Pam and was thanked seconds later by being blown away by the resurrected loon. Then 1981 TV movie Dark Night of the Scarecrow featured mentally disabled Bubba, who is cruelly shot dead by a bunch of local bigots and comes back as a homicidal scarecrow to settle the score.

C-movie House of Death coughed up Casey, a child-like, pudgy remedial who creeps around and flees whenever somebody attempts to engage him in conversation. “Oh, he’s harmless,” they all say. Even when he’s seen randomly flailing his arms at smalltown carnivals…

Worse still was Matthew in Twisted Nightmare, a Xerox of Casey, who is teased and tormented by his sister’s friends until he protests; “You’re bad! You’re all bad!” and runs off (in a supposed handicapped style) to a barn, self-combusts, and returns later as the deformed killer.

Legacy: After the initial slasher boom of the early 80s, red herrings in mystery plots became less prominent. Attitudes towards this kind of stereotypical portrayal of all mentally afflicted mercifully blotted out the need for such stupidly drawn characters. When they did appear, it was in low-end efforts (i.e. Dead Girls) that were only ever seen by 23 people.

In more recent films, Weirdos were separated from their Simpleton counterparts: the long-haired Euro-guy who watches the girls’ volleyball game in Slumber Party Massacre III (named in the freakin’ credits as ‘Weirdo’!) doesn’t speak at all and apparently only shows up to return a lost diary. But still dies.

A decade later, Natasha Gregson Wagner mistrusted society’s stereotypes and fled from a stammering gas pump jockey who she believed was trying to attack her, only to learn the hard way that he was only attempting to warn her about Urban Legend concerning the axe-toting loon hiding in the back of her car!

In Simon Says (2006), professional weirdo Crispin Glover plays identical twins Simon and Stanley, one of whom is evil and the other partially retarded. Or are they the same person playing both parts? Stanley (the simple half), is coded as a post-Forrest Gump halfwit that everybody laughs at.

Fortunately, post-modern self-awareness finally twisted the trope on its head for the farce Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, where the gag was switched and the tubby, starey, rednecks turned out to be the heroes.

Conclusions: On a positive note, it’s good that the ill-conceived notions of mentally challenged people have faded away to some degree over the years. While doubtlessly the likes of Mr Sykes, Otto, Matthew and Casey generated and laughs and general suspicion from a generation brought up to believe that murderers looked more like Sloth from The Goonies than they did Ted Bundy, the fact that it quickly became clear that such characters were never really a danger (again, save for paranormal interference), the number of them on screen depleted and were replaced by regular looking weirdigans.

So, if you find yourself and your friends stalked by a loon, perhaps take heed of the ramblings of the local madman, he may well have insight that you don’t. But don’t be mean to them, that’s a one-way, non-refundable ticket to the boneyard.

Stock Background Characters 101: The Goth

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In this feature, we examine the lesser beings of the slasher movie realm, which, if you’re making your own slasher film, could provide a good cast roster for you.

No killer or final girl profiles here, this is a celebration of those underlings who made the most of their fleeting flirtation with stardom. And usually died.

Time to paint your nails and get moody with THE GOTH

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Overview: Who didn’t have dark and dismal moments in their teenage years? Some of us repress, some of us do all we can to fit in, and some of us paint our nails black, die our hair black, and wear lots of black. And talk about vampires n’ shit.

Unlike many of the Stock Background Characters we’ve already covered, Goth’s are fairly commonplace folk. Hell, I dabbled way back when (much to the displeasure of my devout Christian parents). But we’re talking slasher movies here, where character type is stereotype and nothing more.

Linguistic Snapshot: “What’s the point in running – we’re all gonna die sooner or later anyway? Death is beautiful, might as well get stabbed now than succumb to some horrible flesh-eating disease in a few years.”

Styling: Black. Black. Black. And maybe some deep reds. Hair cannot be natural colour. Heavy boots are the preferred footwear; fishnets for girls; dark glasses; silver jewelery galore; black lipstick; piercings; tats.

Hallmarks: Goths are largely depressed/ing backgrounders; outsiders to the main gaggle of teenagers. On the outer rim of the social collective, they’re there usually to make comments about how hopeless the situation/circumstance/life is.

Despite rarely surviving the murder spree of the picture’s loon, The Goth(s) can sometime provide valuable insights into the dilemma. It’s worth noting, however, that they – like Nerds, Geeks & Dorks – are coded almost sexlessly. Sure, they’re usually played by good looking actors but, in terms of the plot, they rarely, if ever, get any.

Downfall: Most slasher flick’s rarely develop the Goth character beyond any sense of be-downbeat-then-die, although there are a few notable exceptions. Take Molly in Ripper: Letter from Hell as a prime example of Goth as heroine: she dresses for the part, has a bad attitude, and is generally pessimistic about the situation (having been the sole survivor of a previous massacre). Under normal circumstances, Molly would be scheduled to die early but emerges as the final girl. Or is she killer? Actually, if anyone categorically knows what the hell goes on at the end of Ripper I’d be obliged!

One of the heroines of See No Evil is also a tattoo-plastered goth chick.

Elsewhere, Goth characters die un-sensational deaths at the hands of the killer. They are usually drawn as pacifists, even enfeebled people, without much pluck. Taryn, the junkie sub-criminal of Elm Street 3 ‘dreams’ herself into a tough goth counterpart and spars with Freddy in a suitably grimy dreamscape but eventually falls foul of her unreconciled drug addiction.

In Urban Legend, Lithium-toking Tosh (genre fixture Danielle Harris) is the final girl’s roommate and the killer manages to pass off her murder as a suicide; wannabe-killer goth Damien (Alexis Arquette) is done in by the reanimated Chucky when co-goth Jennifer Tilly resurrects him. Then there’s goth-duo Ian and Erin of Final Destination 3, who, while not buying into it, have a few decent theories about Death and its proposed plan to eradicate them.

Genesis: It would seem as if the first goth-like character in a slasher film was awkward-inmate Violet from Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning. While not adhering to the later conventions of ‘goth’, which seemingly came into being in the 1990s hand-in-hand with the grunge movement, Violet is a moody, difficult teen (but she’s at a halfway house for such problem youths so she’s working on it) who robot dances to horrendous neo-rock music and has a post-Madonna dye-job.

In Friday VIII we get JJ, guitar-rockin’ cross between punk and goth who bites it way too early. Then there’s Taryn, and Arab from Sleepaway Camp III in the morphing period between 80s spandex rockers (see also Dokken’s hilarious Elm Street 3 music video for ‘Dream Warriors’). It’s also worth chucking in Ally Sheedy’s neigh-vocal Alyson from The Breakfast Club, as important a teen movie as there could be for the 80s. The chick from Detention (pictured (very) top right) is undoubtedly based on her.

Legacy: In the post-Scream movies, female goths started to grow into the frame with regularity. Tatum from Scream (Rose McGowan, who dated and I think maybe even married Marilyn Manson) is adorned with hints of the look, then on to the aforementioned Tosh, Molly in Ripper, and those we see dotted throughout the genre today. Though there’s still some way to go in terms of gender equality: goth girls vastly outnumber their male counterparts in the way that nerd boys have very few female equals

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Laurie, in Halloween II (2009), has turned from bookish schoolgirl to full-fledged goth-chick, so much so that she becomes almost unbearable as a character (let alone the heroine). Rob Zombie packs both films full of such characters, affiliating them with white trash backgrounds.

A trio of ‘comedy-goths’ appear in Brit-slasher Tormented, who crop up around the edges and saying terribly cliched things about death, music nobody understands, and voicing their feelings about how misunderstood they are. With the rise of “Emo” as a sort-of insult on the back of the whole “goth thing”, characters who dress in black and talk about magic and psychic stuff are treated like moronic idiots and made fun of. Curiously, the trio of dim-bulbed goths in Tormented are allowed to survive (though one is deafened by over-loud music forced on him).

Conclusions: To be a goth, or to not be a goth. It’s interesting that there have been a couple of final goth girls in recent years (though neither were particularly likeable or memorable) and that not everybody whose parents disapprove of the clothes they wear, the colour of their hair, and Slipknot, is with certainty doomed.

That said, it’s still safer not to stand out from the crowd. THAT said, it’s safer still not to go to the party at the old cemetery (sucky, if you’re into all that shit) or explore the rundown old school.

Life is full of dark shit, make sure you don’t get so dark that you become full of blades.

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